New rib/spine/hip pain AFTER chemo and surgery

urmysunshine17
urmysunshine17 Member Posts: 15
edited November 2018 in Pain

I finished chemo mid September and had a lumpectomy + sentinel node biopsy mid October. Pathologic complete response with no node involvement. (Yay!).


Two weeks ago I noticed some rib pain. Tender to touch. Feels muscular, and sore only when I stretch. Now this week I’m having new spine and hip pain. Usually with inactivity, mostly worse after being in bed for a while. Stiffness, too. Naturally I’m terrified and fear metastasis. I see my oncologist next Friday and already have a bone scan scheduled for mid next week. But until those appointments, I was wondering if anyone has experienced similar? New pain soon after supposed successful treatment

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  • CaliKelly
    CaliKelly Member Posts: 474
    edited November 2018

    Sunshine, I had strange pains all the time after chemo, your whole body has bee affected by the poison. Definitely spine pain , in the bones of my legs, shoulders , off and on for quite awhile. My ribs are still tender from my mastectomy, in 2016! I only notice if I press on them or stetch. Sounds pretty normal to me💜

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  • DATNY
    DATNY Member Posts: 358
    edited November 2018

    You may want to do a dexa scan to look for osteopenia or osteoporosis. It is very likely one of this is going on. At the end of TCHP and the year of HP had 70% bone density in my spine. I am 46 only, so I am pretty sure it is from the treatment.

    Secondly, I saw you are ER-/PR+. I had the same diagnosis based on pathology at my local hospital. Went to Dana Farber in Boston for second opinion and they immediately questioned the results - if you check the literature you will find out Er-/Pr+ is controversial, some say is due to some sort of contamination during tissue preparation. They repetead the pathology on new tissue slices from the same original biopsy and found ER-/Pr-. Then, I sent a new set of tissue slices to an independent pathologist who also found Er-/Pr-. Thius Tamoxifen, which was in my original treatment plan, was dropped from my treatment.

    Finally, also I have all kinds of pain. Rib and sternum, tailbone, some joints. I finished HP in August. My doc offered to scan and see what is going on. However, the pain is not severe, so I decided to wait for a while.

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  • DATNY
    DATNY Member Posts: 358
    edited November 2018

    Another thing: if the er-/pr- is confirmed, once you stop tamoxifen the periods might came back naturally. I believe on this forum there is at least one user who was treated for er-/pr- her2+ and has conceived naturally after treatment.

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  • et-hubs2018
    et-hubs2018 Member Posts: 1
    edited November 2018

    My wife had bi-lat mast 10/12 with expanders in, with that electronic pump thing. She has had pain since, in the ribs and shoulders. Started chemo 11/12 and of course that took till Friday to kind of come around. But it is the rib, shoulder, and chest pain that is a big problem.

    She has osteoperosis and is a little small in the mid section.

    Other than Motrin (couple tabs) every six hours, nothing helps. message, small stretching, heating pad, ice. Any suggestions.

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  • Shellsatthebeach
    Shellsatthebeach Member Posts: 316
    edited November 2018

    Have you reported this to her doctor yet? They may need to do some additional test to see what is causing the problem. They can give you a course of action. I had to see a PT for some pain in my shoulder. Did she have lymph nodes removed?

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  • Moderators
    Moderators Member Posts: 25,912
    edited November 2018

    et-hubs2018, we are sorry your wife is feeling so much pain and discomfort. Indeed, would be certainly important to let her doctor know about it, and see what they would like to do in terms of management and diagnostics.

    Please keep us posted

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